Big and Small Tile

Sunday morning rolled around and I headed down to the laundry mat at around seven (before anyone else gets there!) We had so much laundry I had to use our hand truck to get it there in one trip! HAHA. 

When I returned at around nine James had already removed the toilet. I do not know the details. But he said it was bad. and smelly. You will have to talk to him about the mechanics of removing a toilet. Something about a broken valve and spraying water. And smells. 

He was all business after the toilet removal. We used a trowel to apply the tile glue to a clean floor. The floor can be rough but it needs to be free of debris. I used my dad's shop vac a bunch of times to grab all the junk. LOTS of glue, slap it on.

James applying the glue. 

Small tile comes is sheets attached by netting. We were able to fit to entire sheets of small tile behind the toilet with minimal cutting. (That white plastic bag is hiding the hole in the floor where the toilet will go!) Those tiles on the side of the tub are the tiles we cut to go around the toilet.

Follow the directions and let the glue dry for the appropriate period of time before you touch it. You don't want to step on it because it will slide all over the place and mess up your spacing and placement. We needed 6-8 hours for the glue to dry before applying the grout. I apologize for not having pictures I was busy and dirty. 

Making grout is easy. Grout comes in lots of colors. We picked a nice grey color. We got the sanded kind because it's smoother. It is a powder, To make it you put some of the power in a bucket and then add water just like you are making instant pancakes. Once you get a tooth paste like consistency stop. Apply to the tiles with a flat ended towel. Make sure you are getting the grout in between the tiles. Then you wipe off whatever got on the the face of a tile with a wet sponge. 

Tile with grout in between tiles. 

You must clean the grout up before it dries. Clean out of buckets, sinks, the tub. After it dries its very difficult to remove. 

Now, for the shower tiles. We didn't pick out the tile. Our landlord did. They are two feet by one feet. Pretty massive for tile. James and I talked about how we wanted the tile to look on the walls and we decided that it wouldn't look right if all the seems lined up since the tiles are rectangles and not squares. We decided that we could alternate the seems the way bricks are laid.

Measure twice and cut once. Tile is way to expensive to be making mistakes. The wet saw makes a cut that is 1/8 of an inch thick, so when measuring we needed to add an 1/8 to each piece of tile.

I really liked using the wet saw. Wet saws are used to cut tile and stone. The water keeps the blade cool. The wet saw we used had a little plastic cover to stop the water from splashing, but if you use it you can see the cut lines! So I should have worn an apron because I ended up with water allll over my shirt.  I covered the table we were working on with a plastic tarp. And we kept a bunch of towels and old shirts around to mop up the water. I am also wearing protective eye glasses because from time to time small pieces of tile ended up in my face.

Two things I learned: You have to cut straight lines or the blade will jam. The blade will also jam if the water isn't clean. The blade jammed on me a lot when I first started.

It's easy to lay the straight lined tiles. It's when you have to work around the faucet and shower head that things get tricky. We can't cut a circle right in the middle of the tile. (Side-note: James has this cool attachment for the drill that makes perfect circles. While it works wonder on dry wall, we can't use that tool on tile) We had to cut a notch out of the tile to make the tile fit over the pipes.Do you remember what I said about making straight lines. Well James able to cut a semi-circle using a wet small! The kid is good.

Tiling the wall is like tiling the floor but messier. The glue just magically gets everywhere. We slopped on the glue with a towel that is made for large tiles (the grooves on the trowel are bigger for bigger tiles) and then we used spacers to keep them from sliding, because we need a place for the grout. We did a row at a time. 

The bull nose is acting as the boarded around the shower, separating it from the rest of the bathroom which will be painted dry wall. Bull nose is tile that is beveled on one long side in the same color as the face of the tile. (Cut tile is white, pink, or light grey on the inside) You can see the bull nose is bordering the wall on the far right. 

In progress

Those little white things are spacers 

We used 1/8 inch spacers because I don't like the way thick grout lines look. But, it's totally a preference thing. 

What do you think of our progress so far? Looking fancy right?!?

I am going to work on making a list of all the things you need to re-do a bathroom. Its going to be a long one.